A couple of years ago, I looked at the sizes of the websites of all the TUC affiliated unions, to see how they compared. I’ve found myself coming back to this analysis quite often. Various unions have wanted an idea of how large their website is compared to others, or have wanted to judge how

If ten years ago you were asked what the next major trend in website design would be, not many people would have mentioned ‘responsive design’. With the iPhone yet to be launched and the iPad another three years away, people were still happily building websites that worked on a fixed size. It took quite a

I’ve recently taken on a new role in addition to running the Infobo digital consultancy. I’ve been appointed as the first virtual Chief Information Officer at the Trades Union Congress (TUC). It’s ‘virtual’ as it’s a part time role. I’ll be dedicating a handful of days a month to the role, but it comes at

One of the latest projects I’ve been involved with has recently gone live: Prospect, the professional’s union, has just launched their new website. I’ve been helping with the website’s new mobile and tablet friendly design, but also with some major changes to the information architecture. The new design is responsive, a design approach that allows

Drupal 8 was released at the end of 2015. This is a major new version of Drupal, the second most popular website CMS (Content Management System). WordPress is the most popular CMS, and is a great solution for smaller websites and blogs. I use WordPress regularly to build these types of sites. However, for larger sites

Recently, I’ve been looking at the sizes of union websites as a benchmarking exercise to inform a union website redesign project. I thought I’d share the results of the analysis, as it provides some interesting insights, in particular the huge variation in size. It’s difficult to say how much content a website should have. Having too

As well as designing and building websites, I’m often asked to review existing sites to help improve them. One common problem I come across is poor navigation. Navigation can make or break your website. If visitors can’t find what they are looking for, they become frustrated and leave. This is especially the case for websites

I recently developed a new website for UCATT, the union for construction workers. Most of their members do not work at a desktop PC – so it was vital for the website to display well on smartphones. This is increasingly required for all websites, not just union sites. The biggest single change to website

A new addition to the world of trade union Apps has just been released. TUC unionlearn’s popular Climbing Frame website, an online service primarily aimed at Union Learning Reps, has been launched as an App. The App is another way of accessing the same information as on the website, allowing Union Learning Reps and other

The increase in the popularity of tablets and smartphones means that a growing proportion of website visitors are using these devices rather than traditional desktops or laptops. However, most websites are built for display on desktops, so people viewing them on smaller devices have to zoom in and out to read the content. Even worse,